Senate Judiciary Committee to Debate Nonimmigrant Provisions of Reform Bill

From Fragomen.com, 05/14/2013

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will begin debate and mark-up of Title IV of S. 744, the employment-based nonimmigrant section of the comprehensive immigration reform bill. The Committee will consider an array of proposed amendments concerning the H-1B and L-1 programs and the optional practical training rules for F-1 students. Mark-up of the employment-based green card proposals is expected in the coming days, though no specific date has yet been set. 

Among the key nonimmigrant amendments are proposals from Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) to further broaden the Department of Labor's authority to review and investigate employers’ compliance with the labor condition application (LCA) regulations and to limit post-graduate employment options for F-1 students. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has proposed requiring H-1B employers to post offered positions on the websites of state workforce agencies. 

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) is seeking to increase the H-1B cap baseline to 115,000, with a reformulated market escalator that would allow for just-in-time quota increases within a given fiscal year, based on immediate demand for H-1B numbers. He is also seeking more moderate restrictions on offsite placement of L-1B specialized knowledge workers, with a $500 L-1B outplacement fee. 

The markup will begin at 10:00 a.m. EDT and will be streamed live. 

June 2013 Visa Bulletin

EB-3 Continues to Advance Significantly

According to the State Department’s June Visa Bulletin, the EB-3 subcategory for professionals and skilled workers will advance by more than nine months for China and most other countries, to September 1, 2008. EB-3 India will advance a modest two weeks, however, to January 8, 2003. In the EB-2 category, priority date cut-offs for China will advance two months, to July 15, 2008, and will once again remain unchanged for India, at September 1, 2004. 

June 2013 Visa Bulletin, Employment-Based Categories

See the entire bulletin here: http://travel.state.gov/visa/bulletin/bulletin_5953.html

US orders new visa reviews for arriving students

Associated Press, 05/03/2013 – 

“The Homeland Security Department ordered border agents ‘effective immediately’ to verify that every international student who arrives in the U.S. has a valid student visa, according to an internal memorandum obtained…by The Associated Press. The new procedure is the government's first security change directly related to the Boston bombings.

“The order from a senior official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection…was circulated Thursday [May 2, 2013] and came one day after the Obama administration acknowledged that a student…accused of hiding evidence for one of the Boston bombing suspects was allowed to return to the U.S. in January without a valid student visa.

“The student visa for Azamat Tazhayakov had been terminated when he arrived in New York on Jan. 20. But the border agent in the airport did not have access to the information in…SEVIS.

“…[H]is student-visa status was terminated because he was academically dismissed from the university.

“…Under the new procedures, all border agents…[are] expected to be able to access SEVIS by next week.

“The government for years has recognized as a problem the inability of border agents at primary inspection stations to directly review student-visa information.

“…[Also] [u]nder the new procedures, border agents will verify a student's visa status before the person arrives in the U.S. using information provided in flight manifests. If that information is unavailable, border agents will check the visa status manually with the agency's national targeting data center.

“It is unclear what impact the new procedure will have on wait times at airports and borders. Customs officials will be required to report any effect, including longer waits, on a daily basis.”

To read the full article, please click here.